Secular Sunshine

Friday, November 21, 2014

I have loved fiction for as long as I have had the mind to
love anything, and as a child, they molded my morals and priorities. Telling
stories and hearing them or reading them is about communicating more than just
cognitive information. Stories imprint upon us emotionally, taking hold of
something in our minds and changing us in some small way forever.

Quantitative facts are analyzed. The realness of them is of
upmost importance, and that the realness be proven, a requirement for their
claim. Facts, data, and science are tangible, their truths made plain in the scrutinizing
light of reason, and we accept them because they insist we must. And those
things would exist whether we chose to see them or not.

A story, however, must be seen or heard in order to be
true, and the truth of fiction is often different from one person to the next. A
story begs a relationship with its audience to be what it is and belongs as
much to its audience as to its creator in the telling. And fiction, especially,
seeps easily into the memory-filled crevices of our minds, because it isn’t
real, after all. So, what could it hurt?

As an atheist, I know full well the power of fiction. Even
now, fiction holds sway over the actions of most people in the world,
compelling them to kindness and cruelty alike. Religious texts are stories. The
realness of them is debatable to some, but the realness of the story isn’t why
they are so compelling. They are compelling because aspects of the story and of
the characters in the story are entirely emotional in nature. Guilt, love,
contentment, security, fear, and joy all play crucial parts in these tales and
modern fiction is no different.

We know for certain that many stories aren’t real. We know
because these stories have authors, directors, or special effects coordinators
to dazzle us with lies. We pay money to be lied to, and I’m not even
referencing homeopathic medicine, religion, or any other pseudoscience. I’m
talking about things that everyone knows for sure are fiction and leave no room
for delusions of being real in any way. I’m talking about movies, books, video
games, live theatre, or any other form of fictional narrative art. To assert
that fiction isn’t important because it isn’t real is utterly ignorant. Once again setting aside “debatable fiction,” I was struck this
morning by how relevant modern fiction has become to the very real struggles of
so many people.

“Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part One” and the entire “Hunger
Games” series is based on the struggles of fictional oppressed people in a
fictional oppressive government. I’ve read the books and have yet to see any
but the first movie, but I’ve been following the hype and excitement of
audiences throughout their releases. And it isn’t just American audiences that
are devouring these stories. International audiences love them, too. Just how
well the movies are produced, directed, and casted is, of course, important.
But I think that the story is what really gets people. People being oppressed
by their government? Who could identify with that?

The first thing that comes to mind is what has been
happening in Ferguson, Mo. The deaths of many, many young black men at the
hands of police officers frightened into action by racism or motivated to malicious
violence by the same provoked an entire city into mobilized outrage. All it
took was for one more black man to fall victim to the swiftly dragging undertow
of systemic racism for this to happen. For years, this kind of racism went
largely unnoticed by unoppressed people. For years, the mistreatment of young
black men at the hands of armed police officers was either ignored or accepted
on the understanding that these men deserved their fate, that they must have
been up to no good, or why else would our just and fair police force be targeting
them with such impunity?

It has taken too long for the unoppressed to realize that
arming people with lethal weapons and the authority to use them against a
population, often without the means to defend itself in name or body, isn’t
justice. And so what began as a nonviolent but emotionally charged, protest has
escalated into a full blown “state of emergency” with even more armed authority
figures being called in to “keep the peace.” Likening this to the narrative
presented by the “Hunger Games” movies is not a stretch, but the narrative of
Ferguson, Mo. is still being written.

However, there are other protests happening in other places
of the world that have been directly inspired by the “Hunger Games” movies. In
Thailand, PM Prayuth Chan-ocha has declared indefinite martial law. The Thai
military took over the government on May 22 and has been forcibly quashing
protests of their actions to include arresting people giving the infamous three
fingered salute from The Hunger Games. Reading about this literally gave me
goosebumps. Theater chains in Thailand have cancelled showings of Mockingjay to
avoid trouble. Students arranging free showings of the Hunger Games movies have been
arrested, and Prayuth has said that anyone showing the salute was “endangering
their future.”

Protesters in Thailand are gathering strength and courage
from something someone made up. The director of Mockingjay, Francis Lawrence,
has addressed the issue by asserting, "My goal is not for kids to be out
there doing things that are getting them arrested." However, the story has
become larger than his directorial efforts. The audience has claimed the story,
and it is now as much theirs as anyone else’s. The creators of the story can do
nothing to stop this.

Our fiction, what we read, what we write, and what is
written, reflect the times in which we live. History may be written by those in
power, but our stories tell the truths behind what happened and why. I used to
feel guilty about reading more fiction than non-fiction. Admittedly, I do read
more news and non-fiction than I used to, but the stories are really what
nourishes me and keeps me going. Our stories motivate us, and the facts that
surround us give us some sense of direction and purpose.

Every person has at least one story inside of them. Some
people have many. But the continued progress of our culture and of humanity
relies on our ability to tell these stories and on those stories being heard.
The more I listen, the more I am able to understand just how important these
things are. Whether you read books, watch movies, or go to shows, know that you
are taking part in a great cultural phenomenon that has been a tradition for as
long as humanity has thrived. In as much as I’m addressing you, I am also
reminding myself to never stop valuing the tale or the telling, or to feel idle
in doing either.

Tuesday, November 18, 2014

It has taken me a long time to be able to look at those two
words together, two words that have recently become a movement, and to feel
comfortable with them. After all, isn’t being fat unacceptable? I was raised
with this notion and became an adult with this notion. I have toiled endlessly
under this notion and have failed just as endlessly under the idea that being
fat is inherently bad.

I am not entirely sure when I became aware I was fat, but I
know that I’ve been fat for my entire life. I can remember looking at a picture
of a two year old me when I was about five and noticing the roundness in my
face. One of my aunts was discussing the nature of my size with my grandmother,
insisting that I was “just healthy”. Family members would examine my plump
little physique when I would do handstands or back bend-overs, remarking on the
likelihood that I had lost weight as my abdomen stretched, only to be disproven
when I was upright once more and still chubby.

That's me in the middle when I was eight. As you can see, I am a sweaty, dirty, chubby kid. Also, my mother is responsible for that hair cut.

I rode my bike, played outside, climbed trees, swam, and
did all the things that other kids did. However, I did it with a little more
mass. I still like to think of myself as possessing my own special kind of
gravity, and I wish I could go back and tell my elementary school self that I
was okay just the way I was. But even if I could, I don’t know if I could have
listened.

Starting in third grade, other kids at school commented on
my size. The blatant comments of kids at school and veiled remarks adults thought
were out of earshot coalesced into understanding, and I was fat. It was hard
for me to understand exactly why I was fat since I saw other kids eat far more
than I did and remain thin, but I knew that this was at least one part of the
fatness equation, so I began to curtail my portions at school. Some days, I
would just eat an apple. I thought that if kids didn’t see me eating, then they
wouldn’t make fun of me. Teachers would see how little I ate and insist I eat
more, and so I battled through lunch, sometimes eating more and sometimes less
depending on my stealth and resolve.

Puberty came for me early, and by the time I was eleven, I
had even more fat in different places as well as all the fun of fluctuating
hormones. The bullying intensified and I was picked on nearly every day at the
bus stop and on the bus as well as in classes. The kids shamed me for being
fat, for being smart, or just for being…alive. My eating habits fluctuated up
and down depending on how much I was being teased and how much support and
acceptance I could find in my friends and family.

Raised a good Christian girl, I was taught by the Bible to
turn the other cheek, and I did. I thought God was testing me and that if I
could just be strong enough, one day, the other kids would stop picking on me,
or, miracle of miracles, that I might actually get to be thin. I thought,
maybe, God was testing my willpower and that I just had to fast like Jesus did,
and my blighted body would melt into svelte perfection. The fasting technique
was pretty difficult to execute, however, and so I would eat and not eat, on
and off. I enjoyed walking and being alone after school, and the woods around
my house became my sanctuary against temptation on my fasting days and just my
sanctuary of peace and relative silence on my non-fasting days. I did not get
any thinner.

I excelled at school academically, a teacher’s pet in
several classes. Socially, I floundered. I was able to make a few friends, but
as the gap between my intellectual achievements and my “coolness” widened, the
list of people that would talk to me or interact with me became shorter and
shorter. I watched as fat boys were able to retain popularity and acceptance
and was utterly flummoxed as to my own failures. Other fat girls existed, but
they didn’t talk to me. I didn’t talk to them. Some of them were mean, and I
was afraid of being picked on further, and some of them floated through the
hallways as invisibly as I did.

Highschool had its ups and downs…and downs and downs. I
discovered theater and really loved working on the tech crew. I sang in three
different choirs, two of them by audition. I maintained a 4.25 GPA my freshmen
year. I also discovered real eating disorders and the joys of having food
hurled at me by bullies at lunch. My academics and extracurricular activities
were wonderful, and I loved them, but these joys weren’t quite enough to
bolster my still failing social endeavors and my friends weren’t the kind to
stand up for me when the tougher, meaner kids picked on me. I think I was just
awkward enough that it was acceptable for me to be picked on, and of course
being fat. If you’re fat, then people have to pick on you so that you’ll get
better.

So, I dabbled in using my parent’s NordicTrack, fasting,
and forcibly vomiting whenever I consumed more than a glass of skim milk or hot
tea. I really don’t know how I was able to keep up with everything going on my
life, although I do remember all the times I barely made it up the stairs
because of how dizzy I felt. However, I was getting thinner. People even
started to notice. I was miserable, but I was thinner. Hurray! Because that
really is the most important part of being a teenager. Unfortunately, I was
still too fat and too awkward for the bullies to resist.

I gave up on my crazy eating and non-eating habits over the
following summer, got a job, a tan, and all of my chub back despite riding my
bicycle the 7 miles to work and home again. Not long into my sophomore year of
highschool, the pressure of being an academic and extracurricular overachiever
combined with the incessant bullying became too much and I stopped going to
school. It was all a great shock to my parents, my family, and my friends. As
soon as I could, I dropped out of highschool, got an almost perfect score for
my GED, and catapulted myself into adulthood.

My entire childhood, I was bullied for being fat, and for
my entire childhood, I tried desperately not to be fat. Once I entered the
adult world, the fat stigma became more subtle. People seemed to care a bit
less and say a bit less about it to my face, and this was fine by me. However,
I knew that I was still less valuable as a fat girl, so my fight against it
continued.

I was terrified of learning to drive and put it off until I
was twenty and pregnant with my son. Until this time, I rode my bike everywhere
I wanted to go. I had well-muscled legs, but still enough pudge that I could
barely get away with buying clothes in the “normal” section of most stores,
unless those stores were pretentious perfume-pits like Guess or Hollister, in
which case there was absolutely no hope for my size 16 ass.

I learned to pretend to not notice that I was fat, but to
still expect less respect than my thinner coworkers. I was what they call a “good
fattie”. I exercised and dieted. I knew my place in the world was below all the
men and thinner women, for the most part, and that being a “good fattie” meant
accepting that and just being grateful for what accolades I could gather. I
dutifully spoke of my fat as some great sin I would one day shed along with my other
friends who were far less fat than I but still bemoaning their undesirable
lipids. They made-believe I wasn’t fatter than them, and so did I. They evenly
politely insisted that I wasn’t at all fat if I made mention of it, as is
proper.

I squeezed into “normal” sizes for a while and played my
part as best I knew it while still trying to build some semblance of
self-confidence. I dated men that made references to my “pretty face” as an asset
that could counterbalance the fat on my body, and I was happy for the
compliment. I laughed along with my boyfriends and their friends when they
compared me to the Pillsbury Doughboy. I learned laughing along meant getting
along, and that was as good as I thought I deserved.

After giving birth to a surrogate baby (It was wonderful
and fulfilling and another story for another time), I found myself in the plus
size section…and single and stripped of resources that I spent on keeping what
I thought were friends and a loyal significant other happy. Being fat means
having to generally be funnier, more tolerant of bullshit, and more generous if
you are to have any friends at all. However, my postpartum fatness exceeded the
price tag I could afford, and I found myself once again with only a handful of
real friends and a flabby body I couldn’t escape.

One more time, I drank deeply of depression. I filled
myself up with it in such a manner that I couldn’t manage eating. I didn’t even
really have to try to lose the baby weight. It fell off of me as I maneuvered
through the haze of working and just existing. People told me how good I looked
and asked me what I had done. “I’m anxious and sad,” I would reply with a
chuckle. What else could I say? Thank you? The depression of being duped by
people I trusted combined with the hormonal cliff dive of postpartum recovery
robbed me of wanting to eat anything at all. It was so amazingly bizarre to
receive compliments on how I looked at the expense of feeling so terrible.

Throughout this abysmal postpartum hell, I had been talking
to my friend, Mark Nebo. We had been friends for a few years, but not
particularly close. After I decided to open myself up for dating, along with revising
my standards for treatment in the process, Mark asked me out on a date. He
picked me up from my parents’ house and paid for everything, just like I was a
real person and not a fat person that has to barter her way through these
situations because of being less valuable than someone with a smaller
waistline.

I married Mark. I gained about ten pounds or so back before
I did, and although I attempted to get back on the dieting and exercise
rollercoaster, and Mark along with me, we both decided that dieting sucks. Mark
also hates exercise.

Me on my wedding day with beer, because beer is just another thing Mark and I love that isn't conducive to being thin.

Since being with someone that has accepted me, just as I
am, I have learned to be able to do the same. I started to realize that being
happy was vastly more important than being thin and that I am, in fact, just as
valuable as anyone else. I started to think of beauty and fashion differently.
I read articles and blogs written by other fat women, and I looked at images of
fat women with pretty hair and make-up and beautiful form-fitting clothes
hugging their voluptuous bodies.

At first, I accepted fatness with conditions. “Curves” were
okay, but “lumps” were not. Hourglass figures were good, but apple-shaped
bodies were still to be shunned. However, I worked through that, as well. I
started to look at myself in the mirror. I saw all of myself as a whole,
instead of just seeing the pieces I thought were fine. As I have aged, grown,
matured, and created life, my body has changed. It will continue to change. I
realized that I could no longer condition my happiness and self-acceptance on
how fat I was or how my body looked. I realized that I would be waiting forever
to allow myself to have something that I’ve deserved to have my entire life.

I like to exercise and to use my muscles. I like to do
things that are physical in nature, but no amount of exercise has ever shaped
me into what society deems acceptable. I have discovered that weight loss is
possible for me, but that the price for such a feat has been far too much for
too little. I have decided that being thinner isn’t worth what I would have to sacrifice
to get it, and that decision is enough for me.

Northern Michigan with my two fur babies. Please notice how my being fat has literally no effect on my ability to do things. In fact, being fat might have been a boon in this much snow.

In my arguments for fat acceptance, I have heard people
respond with appeals to health. In all of my fatness, in all of my life, I have
been perfectly healthy in body. My physicals are all fine and my bloodwork is
perfect. My blood pressure and heart rates are at healthy levels. I don’t
believe in God anymore, so I know that this isn’t just some strange miracle
that I manage health with being fat.

However, even if I weren’t healthy, shaming in the name of
health is cruel. If you need further proof, please reread all of the bullying
and criticism I endured because of my fatness and decide if you think it had a
positive outcome. Shaming does nothing to help anyone, and if you think being
fat is the only measure of health, you are utterly wrong. Most people do things
that are “unhealthy”. Some people drink, smoke, or eat food that isn’t healthy.
Some people think less of themselves and become mentally unwell because society
tells them they are the “wrong” size.

Christopher Hitchens flaunted his love for drinking and
smoking, but from what I have seen, the world at large remembers mostly what he
said, not whether or not he lead a vice-free lifestyle. If a person is smart,
or kind, or incredibly hard-working, but also fat, especially if that person is
a woman, I do not understand why this can devalue her accomplishments and her
person so greatly when the same is not true for others who could be scrutinized
in the name of health. So, the argument to reject fat acceptance in the name of
health seems pretty illogical, all things considered.

So then, what is wrong with fat acceptance? Once you
disprove a concern for health as a reason, there isn’t much left that makes any
sense. Being fat doesn’t make me less funny, smart, beautiful, productive,
caring, or creative. The worst thing being fat makes me is, maybe, less
sexually attractive to some people, and for every person passing me up for my
fat, there is another person that likes the extra cuddle mass or just doesn’t
care that much about whether the person they are sexing is fat or not. Accepting
fat people doesn’t take away from the value of other people any more than
allowing gay people to get married delegitimizes the marriages of heterosexual
people.

It took me awhile, but once I realized these truths, I was
able to finally let go of the notion that fat is bad. It was like becoming an
atheist all over again. All of the hurtful nonsense that had been holding me
back fell away, and I was able to just love what life had to offer unabashedly
and without shame.

I know that other people still believe that being fat is
bad, and I know that other people might try to proselytize with their
guilt-ridden drivel in regards to my personal relationship with fat, but that way
of thinking has done nothing but hurt me in the past, and it makes no sense to
me, now.

However my body changes in the future, and whatever I may
decide to do with it, it will not be motivated by shame, guilt, or any other
negativity. In accepting my fat, I have accepted myself and the full potential
of what I deserve and what we all deserve, no matter our size or shape.

This sums up my general opinion of fat-shaming.

*If you have any doubts as to my fatness, or are tempted to
believe I am one of the lucky fatties that only have fat in rounded, bubbly
arrangements, I invite you to check out my previous blog post where I have laid
bare (literally) all that is my glorious fat body.

Thursday, November 13, 2014

I know it's been awhile since I've posted, so I really wanted to make this one count.

At almost seven months pregnant, I felt inspired by Kim Kardashian's recent photo shoot in Papermag.com and my wonderful husband, Mark Nebo, decided to support me by participating, as well.

Really, this is about my hard fought battle with my own body image as well as recognizing other people's struggles with the same issue. There is a conflict, I believe, to not only accept ourselves, but to accept each other, as well.

I invite you to do both and to share your own stories and pictures with me at @secularsunshine on twitter.

Sunday, March 9, 2014

David Silverman, president of American Atheists, has
recently been featured in an article on The Raw Story, in which he first
asserted that, "Christianity and conservatism are not inextricably linked".

Although it would seem the vast majority of Conservatives
are Christian, it is arguable that not all them are, and that some may even be
atheists. Silverman confirms that conservative atheists exist and even goes so
far as to call himself "fiscally conservative". He also said "that
social conservatives are holding down the real conservatives."

Silverman also brought up various social concerns that
many Conservatives have, citing theocratic tendencies for those concerns with,
perhaps, one exception:

“I will admit there is a secular argument against
abortion,” said Silverman. “You can’t deny that it’s there, and it’s maybe not
as clean cut as school prayer, right to die, and gay marriage.”

That one quote has sparked quite a bit of unrest in the
secular community. I've read several incredibly concerned comments and articles
about this quote, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't concerned, too. However,
I have decided to reserve judgment until a clarification has been made.

What Silverman said, exactly, is that "there is a
secular argument against abortion". Let's define "secular".

sec·u·lar

[sek-yuh-ler]
adjective

1. of or pertaining to worldly things or to things that are not regarded as religious, spiritual, or sacred; temporal: secular interests.

2. not pertaining to or connected with religion (opposed to sacred ): secular music.

4. (of members of the clergy) not belonging to a religious order; not bound by monastic vows (opposed to regular ).

5.occurring or celebrated once in an age or century: the secular games of Rome.

Nowhere in this definition is
mentioned morality, science, logic, or reason. It is preferable that these
things would go hand in hand, but that just isn't always the case. Not all
atheists are humanists, and not all atheists are skeptics. It is vastly
unfortunate that a trait I thought would really help to separate the wheat from
the chaff doesn't quite do the job. There are immoral and bigoted atheists.
There are atheists who believe, firmly, in the existence of Big Foot, atheists
that don't vaccinate their children, atheists that believe in homeopathy, and
even atheist misogynists.

If you really want to
understand the secular argument against abortion, feel free to peruse that
organization's website. I was pleasantly surprised to see a quasi pro-woman
perspective or two when it came to rape and sex education, but they qualify
as certifiably misogynistic. They hold that a fertilized egg is a person and worthy of
certain rights, namely life. They dismiss the rights of the woman as secondary
and claim a moral high ground in defending embryonic and fetal personhood. Being
ignorant and/or misogynistic while being secular is very possible, if
incredibly sad and infuriating.

I have established that a
secular reason against abortion does, in fact, exist. I assert that it is a
terrible one fueled by a misguided desire to defend the "helpless" and treat
women as second class citizens. It is my hope that Silverman was referencing
these reasons as merely existing, and couldn't dismiss all the opponents of
abortion as religious because of it. Saying that something is real is not the
same as saying that it is good or justified, and I can't, in good conscience,
react with condemnation for what he said without some kind of clarification.

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

I've certainly taken more than a brief hiatus from
writing much over the past few months, and every time I thought to write
anything, I kept coming back to the same sore subject. It seemed too personal a
thing to write and too full of a sort of hurt I was sure nobody would really
understand.

And even when it
happens to other people, nobody talks about it. Not really. It is hushed
up and glossed over, and I thought that was how it was supposed to be. My sad
story, and many others like it, are common. They are more common than many
people realize, and it wasn't until I read of someone else's experiences that I
realized it was worth telling.

There is very little comfort to be had when a pregnancy
goes awry.

My brother and his wife told the family that they were
pregnant exactly two weeks before my husband and I discovered we were pregnant.
My entire family was elated, as this would be my brother's first child, and my
husband's first child. My mother was over the moon with the idea of having two
grandbabies at almost exactly the same time. It was going to be yellow ducks,
and tiny socks, bright sunrises, and little people discovering the world in
tandem while all the big people watched them. It was going to be just perfect.

I was out of town on business when my brother called me
to let me know that they had lost the baby. He was crushed, and I was crushed
for him. I felt guilty because I had just announced my own pregnancy, and I
felt so much sorrow for him. I realized how common it was, that about twenty
percent of pregnancies end in miscarriage, and that it could just as easily have
been me. I remember hoping the best for him and his wife, and feeling impotent
to do much else.

Two weeks later, I was six weeks along and at my first
doctor's appointment with an excited husband, who had taken the day off work to
accompany me. I have a ten year old son, and so I had been through this before.
However, it felt so very good to be happy about our pregnancy, and so different
now, at the age of thirty, instead of being frightened and alone at nineteen.
It felt so different and so joyful with someone I trusted there next to me
being just as excited as I was. The doctor wasn't able to hear a heartbeat this
early, but there was a faint flicker on the ultrasound and a promising little
blob. They printed out pictures, and we sent messages to our parents. We basked
in the gestational glow of imagined firsts.

Over the next two weeks, I spotted lightly and worried
heavily. My morning sickness was coming and going irregularly and I had the
looming sense of wrongness that I kept telling myself was in my head. If I
could just get through the first trimester, I would be okay. I would travel for
work, and friends at conventions would smile at my rotund shape as mine and my
husband's hopes grew to fruition. I tried not to dwell on either of these
thoughts as I passed through peaks and valleys of optimism and anxiety.

I had another ultrasound to discern a more definite
heartbeat when I was eight weeks along, and the morning of my appointment, I
discovered a telling black clot when I went to the bathroom. There was a moment
of panic before leaden resolve settled
into my stomach. I won't say I didn't hope. I hoped. I went to my appointment
alone and I hoped.

The ultrasound confirmed my worry. There was no
heartbeat. I tried not to cry and I held out for two and a half seconds before
the wave of despair crashed on me as I sit there in my paper gown. The doctor
was very comforting, as was the nurse. They let me slip out of the office
quietly, and I did. That is how it goes, I guess. Heartbroken mothers-to-be
slipping out quietly and crying their many tears in the car. I hadn't yet begun
to actually miscarry, but I had another business trip in a little more than a
week and couldn't afford to wait, so we scheduled a D&C, and I got down to
wrapping my head around what was happening.

My husband came home early. I told him via email because
he can't get calls in the office, and he shed his tears in the car, too. I told
everyone what had happened via phone and facebook, and then I took to the mommy
boards.

For an atheist, it is enraging to read of so many other
mothers giving condolences in the form of celestial images of tiny angels and
the will of a supposedly loving deity. I can't even begin to describe the anger
I felt at reading all of the misbegotten "meant to be". It felt
hollow and bitter, like my seemingly blighted uterus. I turned away from the
boards online and read sympathy messages on facebook. They were all very
well-meaning, and I know that, but I think I learned more about what not to say
to a grieving person in those moments than I ever have before.

1. "You'll get pregnant, again."

Will I? And if I do, what then? In the wake of a
miscarriage, recalling how hope turns so easily to grief just reminds me that
there are no guarantees.

2. A pregnant women suggesting that I'll be just fine.

Wow.

3. Asking me if there is something medically wrong with
me.

Assuring people that my plumbing is probably just fine
over and over again to parents, friends, and acquaintances was incredibly
strange, especially when people who knew me told me that they regarded me as
very "fertile". It made me feel like livestock.

4. Suggesting how long to wait, or not to wait, to try to
get pregnant again.

I'm still carrying my dead fetus. Can we just deal with
the feelings I am having right now?

5. "At least you know you can get pregnant."

Brilliant. Yes. Proof. Eureka! I feel so much
better. Not.

Pointing out the accomplishments of my body,
as far as gestation goes, is not going to help, because this pregnancy has just
ended in a gut-wrenching failure.

I do understand how it feels to want to say
the right thing. I had been consoling my brother over his own loss just weeks
before. I know how hard it can be, to want to say something that helps, but
unsolicited advice, questions, or generalized statements about what may or may
not happen are all hard pills to swallow at a time like this. I don't hold on
to any resentment or negativity toward people that unwittingly said something
that stung at a hard time. I just want us all to get better, together.

I waited for the day of my D&C, lamenting
the loss of this pregnancy and reliving all of the hopes I had. The day of my
procedure, I unabashedly asked for all of the drugs, which helped take the edge
off both before and after the procedure. I even asked my doctor for a small
supply of anti-anxiety medicine to help me get through the next week or two at
the insistence of my husband, who knows my dysfunction as well as I do and is
less embarrassed of it.

I awoke to the sound of my very rad anesthesiologist
talking to the nurse about video games, and in my semi-lucid state I was sure
it was Skyrim because he mentioned dragons.
I went with it and blurted out something regarding the ineffectiveness
of boob armor and babbled on as the nurse fetched my husband. It wasn't a bad
day, actually, thanks largely to the pre-op relaxation drug they gave me. The
hubby ushered me to the pharmacy, where I complimented every single person I
saw on one article of clothing or another, and then home. Nestled into a nest
of blankets on the couch, I napped into reality.

The next two days were agony, but not
emotional agony. I had months for that. There was some kind of complication
involving my pain meds. It seemed like my entire G.I. tract was swelling and
roiling about inside of me while my uterus began to contract painfully back
down to normal. After the second day, I could no longer stand it and went back
to see the doctor, who prescribed something different and gave me some antibiotics.
I don't know what did it, but I felt better the next day and improved well
enough over the next week to make my convention.

The months that followed were very hard for
me. When you are pregnant, and then become not pregnant, hormones dropping can
cause feelings of deep melancholy, also known as baby blues or postpartum
depression. When you have a baby, nursing and even just proximity to your baby
releases calming hormones. I remember holding Johnny when he was little, and
even in the whirlwind clusterfuck that was my life way back when, I felt so
happy. There was no biological solace to be had, this time.

The depression settled in for the Fall and
stayed for the holidays, and I coped well enough. Every day, waiting to stop
bleeding, and then waiting for my cycle to start back up again, I was reminded
that my body could malfunction at any time. I thought, if I could just get
pregnant again, I would feel better. And we tried. We tried through two erratic
and untimely cycles. All those empty consolations rang in my ears and the
depression sat in anew when my period came early and then late. My rhythm was
off. I was living in a body that was a wretched reminder of
failure.

The holidays came, and I was reminded again.
My beloved bump was absent amidst all of the people that had been so happy
about the possibility. We went out of town and visited my husband's family. I
greeted one of his sisters, swollen with her own baby and due in just a few
months, and knocked back all the beer I had insisted we bring as small children
stampeded about and a new baby fussed and cooed. It should have been happy, but
it was agonizing, and I felt guilty for being miserable while in the company of
people I love and seldom see. I cried all the way back to where we were
staying, glad that my son was passed out in the back seat. It was an hour long
ride, and when we got back, I slipped quietly into the house, like I had
slipped quietly out of the OB's office a few months before.

That had been the beginning of the end of the
worst of it, but the worst of it had lasted months, and in that time, I often
wondered about other moms. I couldn't bring myself to look online for fear of
seeing further invocations of a silly god. I thought, maybe, I was just more
sad, for some reason. Not only was my fetus gone, but perhaps a piece of my
sanity was gone with it, and other moms bore this sorrow more gracefully than
I. It is most certainly a sad topic, and yet so common that I think it isn't
discussed because it could happen to literally anyone, and nobody wants to be
reminded that luck is a fickle mistress. So many of us, living in developed
nations, are partial to our bliss and our ignorance.

After the holidays were over, after I had
faced my entire family and many of my friends empty and sullen, the dire
urgency to become pregnant again dissipated, and I was able to enjoy my life
without counting down the days to the beginning of my next cycle. I took up
hunting deer, having practiced with my bow while we were out of town, shifting
my aspiration from one of creating life to one of taking it. Sitting out in the
snow covered woods allowed me to clear my head and fully process my thoughts
without an emotional filter. Silent and still, the forest forgot I was there,
and I felt myself becoming smaller and smaller until my sadness became a trivial
thing in a beautiful place where creatures ate other creatures to survive.

It is still like that, now. I read the news
and see people being forced out of their homes by flooding and violence. Small
tasks and large goals take up my time. My son is almost as tall as I am and he
loves me, even before I've had my coffee. I realize how lucky I am, and at the
same time, I can remember when my luck ran dry. All the well wishes in the
world aren't enough to defy biology. I wish I could say that I'm not sad about
it, anymore, but I don't think this is a sadness that goes away, and it is odd
to me that so many other women might also carry this sadness and never really
speak of it.

The irony of having an uncomplicated
unintended pregnancy and losing an intended one is not lost on me. The catch
twenty-two of having babies young, when your body can best hold them, and
having them when you are older and more stable is also not lost on me. Being a
mother is a beautiful, terrible experience, but so is living, and I wouldn't
change either of those things. I'm hoping that I am able to become pregnant
again, but I know anything and nothing is possible, and that even if it does
happen, that it will never be the same. I will always worry just a little bit
more because I know that life isn't a promise at all. It is a chance.

Thursday, August 1, 2013

My family lives in a low income housing neighborhood. Some of the houses on our street are rented, and some of them are owned. We own our
house. My husband purchased it when he was single, the housing market took a
dump, and here we are. This isn't where we will be forever, but it is where we
live for now, and living here has given me a unique perspective on racial and
socioeconomic stereotypes, the reality of crime in low income areas, and how it
feels to be "othered". My family isn't better than any of the other
families, but it is different. My neighborhood is mostly black, and I know of
only a few families that aren't black among easily a hundred of other families.
We are the minority, here, and the experience has been eye-opening.

There are townhouses and apartment complexes. There are
playgrounds and basketball courts. There are good neighbors and not so good
neighbors. I am immensely thankful for the good neighbors, and find myself
still thankful that the bad neighbors and/or their visitors aren't as bad as
they could be. My family and I have everything we need and plenty of what we
want. We work hard, but our compensation is fair. Many of my neighbors don't
have enough of what they need or want. Some of them work harder than we do and
have less. What has been made abundantly clear to me is that life isn't fair,
and that people generally try to do the best that they can, even if that best
seems extremely wanting to someone as privileged as me.

I understand that privilege, and though I may become
angry when my son or I is spoken to rudely, I still try to be patient. I am
responsible for being a good neighbor, no matter what other people may say or
do. I am responsible for being mindful of my chances in life and how very good
they have been. I it is my duty, as a human, to use my privilege to try to make
my neighborhood better and to try to be patient, tolerant, and kind. I have to
tell myself that every day. And on one very, very bad day and the weeks to
follow, I learned just how important that patience really is.

Mark and I were one week out from having taken our
nuptials in his home state of Michigan. Our house was still littered with boxes
from the wedding, boxes from my parents' house, and in general disarray from a
week of neglect. There was dust and dog fur covering everything. It was a
Saturday, and we needed to go see my parents to collect up the rest of our
wedding stuff, as well as liking the idea of just being able to spend some
quiet time with them. Hurricane Sandy was on its way up the coast, and it was a
little windy, but other than that, we didn't see any reason not to make the 75
minute trip to Annapolis. After giving our german shepherd a good scratch
behind the ears, Mark, Johnny, and I hopped into the car, and off we went.

We went out to an early dinner, read our wedding cards,
and reminisced about what we thought was the best decision either of us had
ever made. Mom and Dad were happy and Dad's jokes were spot-on. On our way
home, we laughed and listened to music. I told Mark that we should take Roscoe,
our german shepherd, for a walk. Pulling up into our driveway, all seemed right
with the world. One of our neighbors walked out of her front door and waved at
us. She seemed a little distressed, and I thought she was going to talk to us
about the coming storm. The wind had kicked up a bit by this time and I wasn't
sure what to expect with all the hype that the hurricane was getting on the
news. The three of us got out of the car and approached her.

"Hi...um...oh lord...this is so hard."

I had no idea what she could have possibly been talking
about, but she could be a little over the top sometimes, so I thought she might
still be on about the storm.

"They shot Roscoe." Mark and I blinked, unable
to take in what she had just told us.

"What?", Mark asked, incredulous. I could feel
my heart beat faster, the lump rising up in my throat as I hoped that she meant
anything but what she just said.

"The police. They shot him. Right there." She
pointed to a rusty splatter on the road behind our driveway that we hadn't
noticed until this moment. "He shot him right there in the street."

"Is he...", Mark trailed off for a moment, and
I felt the shape of my nine-year old filling my arms. I gulped back the
gelatinous mass of emotion rising from my gut.

"Is he dead?", Mark finished, somewhat
matter-of-factly, his face seemingly made of stone as he looked to our now
quivering neighbor.

"Yeah...he's dead. They took him away. It just happened
this morning."

There it was. We didn't understand how it happened, but
the local police shot and killed our dog. Roscoe wasn't just our dog. He was
our friend and our guardian. He scared some of the neighbors and barked at
anyone that walked in front of our house, but the neighborhood was a little
rough, anyway, and he made us feel safe. He never hurt anyone, and he was nothing
but loving to his family and people that approached him with a friendly
demeanor. Our good neighbors knew him and appreciated him for the steadfast
companion that he was. He was a good dog.

Johnny had his head buried in my chest and was sobbing.
It was all I could do to not utterly lose my own composure.

"I'm so sorry," our neighbor said. "I saw
him. He ran back in the house after. He lay right there on your couch. I looked
in and I saw him. I said good-bye to him and I blew him a kiss. Poor baby..."

She looked down at Johnny who was trembling as I rubbed
his back and soaking my shirt in his tears, then to me, then to Mark. We were
speechless.

"I had to take a xanax, after. It was so
terrible," she continued. The silence wasn't just awkward, it was painful.

"I wonder how he could have gotten out," Mark
mused quietly.

Mark and I decided to go into the house and try to figure
out what happened in the midst of our despair, neither of us showing much
emotion at the moment. Our neighbor asked if Johnny would like to stay with her
while we called the police and examined our entryways. She had a son a little
older than Johnny, and he was watching cartoons. Johnny reluctantly parted from
me and was soon distracted by Spongebob Squarepants.

We checked the downstairs windows from the outside and
found them to be secure. Upon opening the front door, we found that it didn't
require a key. It swung open easily. We didn't even need to turn the knob. A
gentle push revealed a scene from something out of a nightmare.

The first thing we noticed was the blood. There was so
much of it, everywhere. Our couch was covered in it, with one large, dark,
ominous spot spreading out from where we knew Roscoe liked to lay the most. The
dining room floor, by the sliding glass door in the back of the house was also
covered. A dark, dried up crimson pool spread out from under the table like a
rug, and there were tracks of it everywhere.

I finally let go and heaved a sob. Mark and I stood in
our house, having been married only a week before, and beheld the wreckage. Not
only was there blood everywhere, but the general disarray that existed
previously had been overturned into complete chaos. Our boxes looked like they
had been pushed around, and some of our electronics were missing. We went
upstairs and found the rest of our house thusly ransacked with more items
missing, including Mark's handgun.

Johnny stayed with his dad for a few nights, and Mark and
I stayed with a friend. In the previous void that were our emotions, we spent
the night inundated and consumed with grief, fear, betrayal, anger and just
flat out empty sadness. Hurricane Sandy sideswiped us as we cried and lay
sleepless, moving north and wreaking havoc on the Atlantic coast while we
attempted to make sense of it all. In our own little bubble of personal
tragedy, we weren't thinking much of the thousands that would be experiencing
their own at the hands of something even more vicious than human misunderstandings
and disparity.

We spoke to the police that day and the next. Roscoe was out of the house not long after we left, and one of the neighbors had called to complain about the scary dog running loose. We still aren't exactly sure what happened. We think that we must have forgotten to close the door completely and then the wind blew it open. Once our noble defender was out of the picture, or maybe before, while he was joy-riding around the neighborhood, our door was wide open, and the theft was a crime of opportunity. We will never know for certain, but we are still faced with the fact that someone living close to use stole our belongings, including a dangerous handgun, and our local police misunderstood the excited or perhaps even agitated barking of our dog as an attack.

It would be enough to make anyone bitter, and we were. It frightened us. We were terrified by the fact that a powerful weapon designed to kill was in the hands of someone that probably didn't respect it. We were angered by the fact that our house was intruded upon in broad daylight and that the police ignored the pleas of our neighbors to not shoot our dog. But, we didn't take to the streets with a gun and shake down any suspicious people that we happened upon, and we didn't launch a media attack against the police, either.

We did take the streets, however. We talked to everyone.
We let everyone know what happened, and that we knew that whoever had our gun
lived in this neighborhood. I talked to parents at the bus stop. I stopped and
talked to gathered groups of people on the sidewalk. I told everyone that I
saw.

Mark and I cleaned up the house, and we started to get
our lives back to normal. We were still grieved by the loss of our dog, but we
started looking to rescue another one. We filled our home back up with love and
with laughter. Not even a week after the incident, Mark was leaving for work
and found one of our Playstation units set very nicely between our cars in the
driveway. Apparently, someone that we spoke to must have seen something. The gun
hasn't turned up, yet, and the sound of a dozen odd gunshots rang out through
the night air that month at various times. But, there were no injuries
reported. I know, because I started attending monthly neighborhood crime
meetings. I made sure the police knew my face.

I am wary of some of the people in my neighborhood. More
specifically, I am wary of the ones that I don't personally know. I am wary of
the man on the sidewalk that won't look me in the eye when I smile and wave at
him on a morning walk. I am cautious. But, I still smile, and I still wave. I
still hope for the best, and when someone looks like they are hiding something,
I give them a wide berth. I have my local police phone number saved in my cell
phone, and when I see something that I believe warrants attention, I call them.
Even when I become angry by the memory of how impotent and afraid I felt after
finding my home bloodied and violated, I don't turn to vigilante justice. I
turn to my neighbors and my community. I use my voice, and I make sure that I
am heard by everyone, and I encourage them to use their voices, too.

Terrible things happen to people every day in
neighborhoods just like mine, and people lose more than their family pets and
their belongings. They lose their humanity. They are brought up in
circumstances outside of their control, and they become stereotypes and
statistics for other people to shake their head at.

It just may have been a boy in a hoodie that reclaimed
some small piece of our property and saw it safely back to us. It may have been
a boy in a hoodie that stood up for us in private to a group of scared young
kids. It might have happened that way. I'll never know for sure. But I do know
that talking to that boy in a hoodie, to that suspicious character, has served
to shed more light on his true nature than pointing fingers at him.

A boy in a hoodie isn't going to bite you for saying hello.
The kids in this neighborhood are just kids, and they are still human, and
still worth reaching out to. The people here are not their disadvantages or
their crimes or social transgressions, and nothing is going to get better until
the people that can do better reach into these communities with both hands. My
neighborhood needs good examples, mentors, and acceptance. They've been pushed
into a dark corner of town and left to their own devices, separated from the
good, upstanding citizens who sneer at their baggy pants.

And why would anyone want to be a part of something that
looks down on them? Why wouldn't they grow to resent the people that would
judge and ignore them? It is time for that to change. It is passed time. It is
time for those of us with more resources, power, and education to be among
them, instead of above them. It is time for us to know them, as fellow humans, and to stop treating their setbacks as symptoms of their deviancy and start treating their setbacks as a symptom of our own apathy.

Thursday, July 18, 2013

I love my pets, and I feel a very definite
need to have at least one animal in my house. Currently, I have one cat, two
large dogs, and one fish, and I very much enjoy the presence of them all. Each
one has something different to offer and each one has different requirements
for proper care. My house is never completely clean, and I am still wondering
how to tackle all of the chewed furniture, wall molding, and window sills. I
have replaced several items in my house because of one or more animal chewing,
clawing, or defecating on them. I accidentally ingest fur regularly, and I have
to take an allergy pill every day or my face swells up like a balloon. And yet,
I wouldn't give them up.

It seems that many people in the secular
community share my love of animals, so I compiled a list of reasons why
atheists, in particular, love their furry, scaly, feathery, creepy, crawly
companions.

1. Animals will never, ever tell you that you
are going to hell.

The complete lack of judgment makes their
company instantly appealing. You can work on your Muhammad portraits while
eating Doritos, watching porn, and lighting your workspace with six hundred and sixty six burning
Bibles. Fido doesn't care.

2. Animals are atheists, too!

They don't need forgiveness and hate fasting.
Naps are a completely appropriate replacement for prayer.

3. We like having live-in reminders of
evolution.

Isn't it interesting how much paws look like
hands and fins look like wings? And why is it that fish and reptiles are
cold-blooded and have scales? Why does the parakeet look more like a tyrannosaurus
than my boa constrictor? In daily observations of our animals, we can see just
how much we have in common with them and how much in common they may have with
each other.

You can't just politely ask your cat to stop swatting
everything off of your dresser. You have to understand the creatures you live
with and play by their rules to achieve the desired result. "Bad"
behaviors and "good" behaviors are sometimes innate and sometimes
require tenacity, patience, and acceptance. Pets remind us that the world
doesn't work on our terms, and sometimes, we have to become creative with our
solutions.

5. Every day is full of surprises.

You never know what you are going to see,
hear, or smell, and you never know if it is going to be adorable or catastrophic,
or a sadistic twist of the two, like finding your german shepherd and kitten
curled up together in a bed of shredded upholstery.

6. Sharing a living space with animals allows
us to demonstrate a blatant disregard for superstitions.

There is an actual belief that black dogs and
black cats are somehow related to witches and vampires, as well as the
well-known ability of cats to suck the breath from babies. And then, of course,
keeping snakes is rather dangerous. They are full of terrible suggestions, I'm
told, and very persuasive.

7. We want to help care for our fellow
earthlings.

The exchange of trust and companionship makes
all the work worthwhile. Forming relationships with animals other than humans
and expecting nothing in exchange aside from the pleasure of their company is rewarding.

8. Communing with your animals makes more
sense than communing with an invisible entity.

Prayers or pettings? Both have been shown to
help with stress, but atheists prefer something more tangible. Petting our
dogs, cats, snakes, squirrels, ducks, turtles, or whatever else we may have is
one of the ways we relax and recover.

9. They ward off unwanted visitors.

Jehovah's witness knocking at your door? If
you don't have a dog to bark at them, then perhaps you and your pet scorpion,
Stabby, could hazard a greeting.

10. Love from pets is absolutely and
completely unconditional.

They don't love you as long as you follow a
list of rules, or as long as you pet them five times a day while facing toward
their food bowl. Affection from a pet is genuine and completely free of
pretense or obligation.

11. Enthusiasm for our pets helps us to
connect to the rest of the non-secular world.

Who doesn't love kittens and puppies? No
matter who you are or what you believe, the good and well-intended people of
the world are easily identified as ones who care for those who cannot care for
themselves, including animals.